But with the remarkable live feed from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico still showing the sickening sight of oil belching into the water, one can not help but think of that please-gimme-a-Mulligan phrase from Rahm Emanuel, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”

Dealing with the oil spill is one thing. Making the leap from there to push a a costly “cap-and-trade” energy policy faintly associated with climate change is quite another. It seems that rather than confronting a supposed “inconvenient truth”, Obama is attempting an inconvenient non sequitur.

It has always stuck me as highly plausible that scientific researchers writing grant requests needed to convey some sense of urgency in order to motivate their potential funding sources into action. Big need, big problem, big money. Likewise, at the local newsstand, which cover story would more likely catch your attention: “Earth’s Changing Climate: Same As It Ever Was…” or, “Warming Climate To Radically Alter Life On Earth!!!”?

On a far more serious note, all of this would would border on the comical if the consequences of blindly following such biased research were not so damaging to the most vulnerable people in the world. Because at the end of the day, if the man-made global warming proponents have any concern for their fellow man, they will realize that man’s ability to adapt to an ever-changing climate is first and foremost an economic problem. It is really one of poverty, as it is the poorest people who are most unable to adapt. Therefore, the solution is to create more of the opposite of poverty, which is wealth. So instead of pouring our passion and funding into global warming, we should instead be fighting for global liberty.

Liberty and globalization, defined in this context as freedom in all forms, free trade, property rights and the rule of law, have done more to lift people out of poverty and better positioned them to deal with an ever changing world than any headline-grabbing, heartstring-tugging, Polar Bear-hugging, income-redistributing, Save The Planet campaign ever has, or ever will.